[blml] Countdown

[Grattan Endicott]

Grattan Endicott
geggeg at tiscali.co.uk
[also gesta at tiscali.co.uk]
*************************
"A grievance is most poignant when 
almost redressed."     ~ Eric Hoffer. 
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric Landau" <ehaa at starpower.net>
To: "Bridge Laws Mailing List" <blml at amsterdamned.org>
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: [blml] Countdown


> On Nov 1, 2007, at 8:34 PM, WILLIAM SCHODER wrote:
> 
>> If what you say Mr. Landau is that evaluation of players' abilities  
>> is not
>> relevant to irtational, then I think you are on the right track.
> 
> Actually I've been saying that for years -- I believe I can  
> rightfully claim to have been the strongest voice in this forum  
> objecting to the WBF's reinterpretation of the 1997 footnote to state  
> otherwise.  And I will continue to say it when the discussion turns  
> to the interpretation of L70E, where the word "irrational" now appears.
> 
> But it no longer appears in the footnote.  That raises a new concern:  
> not whether a player's ability is relevant to "irrational", but  
> whether "irrational" is relevant to L70D and L71, from which the  
> refererence to it has been expunged.  Tim's point, as I understand  
> it, is that while it may be true that it is no longer relevant to the  
> consideration of plays that are careless or inferior, it may remain  
> relevant to consideration of plays which are neither (like trump  
> squeezes when Mrs. Guggenheim declares).
> 
+=+ In 70E the word is used with its dictionary meaning. It applies 
in the single circumstance that claimer proposes a line of play not 
included in the statement of claim and there is no other rational line 
of play.  It has no other application and has been expunged  from the 
text elsewhere. 
     I have long noted that both Kojak and Eric Landau have shared 
this opinion, with equal force and no less endurance. From time to 
time I have echoed the view and at long last Kojak had his way in 
the matter during the Laws Review for 2007.  The key fact is that a 
link that had developed between 'irrational' and 'class of player' has 
been removed - when the footnote appeared in 1987 the placing of 
the comma interrupted any such linkage and it has taken all this time 
to recover from a subsequent deflection of the meaning.  
                                               ~ Grattan ~   +=+